Hey guys, I recently was willed rifle. Details as follows"
Enfield Percussion cap 1859 with 36.5 inch barrel
Rifle was converted to breech loader between 1860 by Enfield Armoury to fire black powder .577 Snider rounds from the previous black powder round it came with.
Rifle has 2 band pattern which should mean NCO shorter rifle of 30.5inches, but instead has the lenght of the standard 3 band stock. Doesnt look like a band is missing.
Its missing a ram rod but ive found a replacement. Bore slightly pitted but other than some mild rusting in chamber area not horribly bad. The rifle has the browning military conversion coating on the barrel. The receiver is apparently case hardened iron and has resultant dark grey look. Its got brass trigger guard, buttplate and foreend cap on stock.
So question is how to restore? Not sure if it will ever be shot. Not intersted in selling it but wanted to clean it up. The barrel as mentioned has the traditional "browning process" on it with the recipe being roughly this according to field British manual from the time.
Nitric Acid 1/2 ounce
Sweet Spirit of 1/2 ditto. [toxic ethyl nitrite]
Spirits of Wine 1 ditto. [ethyl alcohol]
Blue Vitriol 2 ditto [copper sulfate]
Tincture of Steel 1 ditto. [alcoholic solution of the chloride of iron]
Not really wanting to mix up the cancerous acid crap above. It involves some boiling of the barrel as well to stop the acid.
So this doesnt leave alot of options, the one possible is bluing I suppose, but it wont look to authentic. The other maybe would be stripping browning and going with a fully polished barrel that was popular on the 1853 pattern Enfield at some points.
For the wood I was going to strip old oil mix using turpentine and thought I would re oil using straight boiled linseed oil. The original recipe for the stock stain from Enfield as per field manual was this
Spirits of Wine 1 Quart [ethyl alcohol]
Dragon's Blood powder 3 Drams [bright red resin used in varnish]
Shellac bruised 1 Ounce
For the brass was going with usual Brasso.
Any ideas on the above? I am abit hesitant on taking stock screws out due to age. Is there a simple was to remove old screws without breaking them? This would make it easier to clean and redo it.
Is there a more easier way to Brown the barrel that isnt bluing? Or whats thoughts on polished metal instead?
Thanks for any help.